Baguio gets nod to build new public market
MASTER PLAN The proposed new public market in Baguio City is a five-story complex that will house stalls of fish and meat, vegetables, rice and dry goods. —Baguio City Government
BAGUIO CITY—The court liquidating the assets of developer Uniwide Group of Companies will not block the city government’s decision to cancel the lease contract to develop the public market here.
Justice Martin Villarama Jr., the court-appointed liquidator and one of the businessmen trying to collect money owed by Uniwide, had recognized the termination of the firm’s unfulfilled lease deal to build and manage a P1.7-billion market in 1995, said Mayor Benjamin Magalong on Monday.
Magalong discussed the update on Uniwide when a P2.5-billion master plan for a new public market was presented at the weekly executive-legislative meeting here.
Bankruptcy
The city government asserted that the Uniwide contract was voided when the Securities and Exchange Commission dissolved Uniwide and all of its subsidiaries in 2013, and placed all its assets under receivership.
Uniwide declared bankruptcy due to the impact of the 1997 Asian currency crisis.
The liquidator’s task is to convert all Uniwide’s assets into cash or other forms of valuables to pay all its debtors.
The Baguio market contract was not listed among these assets to be apportioned to Uniwide creditors, but Magalong said the city government had informed Villarama to make sure “the books are cleared.”
He said a businessman, who had the biggest exposure in Uniwide and needed to collect P2 billion, supported the termination of the market contract.
Uniwide chair, Jimmy Gow, had also reached out, offering to invest instead in the Baguio market project, the mayor said, adding that he told him that “it was unacceptable.”
Magalong said he also rejected a proposal for Gow to sell the contract to a company owned by former Sen. Manuel Villar for P100 million, so a developer can take over the market project.
He said the city government would want to build the public market itself.
A consultancy group presented a plan to put up a five-story complex that would house 4,000 vendors selling fish and meat, vegetables, rice and dry goods.
Also included in the plan are vehicle and pedestrian lanes that would host a night market and elevated walkways connecting the new market to Burnham Park and Session Road in the business district. —VINCENT CABREZA
